The tanks are the most important things on Killibol. Everybody’s life focuses around his connection with a Tank. By the letter of the law of practically any city a citizen’s right to food is inalienable; the most severe penalty is to be turned outside, into the open where you starve to death. But in practice it’s possible to lose your connection and have to try to make a living by scavenging, by performing irregular services, or by crime. The tanks are attached to all the organisations that exist inside the city. The police have their own tanks, the construction workers have their own tanks, and so do the manufacturers as well as the city government. So any of those people might become displeased with you and cut off your connection and there’s not much you can do about it because the law is rough and ready in Klittmann. Even if you work for the government, if they fire you they tear up your allotment card.
In Klittmann there are thousands of such people and most of them are to be found in the bowels of the city, in the seedy, dangerous quarter that bustles around the foundations. The cops never came in there much; although they would have liked to, the hard facts of life had created something of a boundary between the domain of the police and the domain of crime.
Well, that gives you a fragment of the picture. A Killibol city is isolated, absorbed in itself — there’s no ionosphere for long-range radio and the trading caravans that once in a while set out fall foul more often than not of nomad bands, so there’s not much scope for adventure or travel — but it needs to be said that the affairs of a place like Klittmann scarcely vary at all from generation to generation. There’s no progress, and no decline. The citizens carry out their work and life habits with a blind instinct, exactly like those termites I was talking about. And naturally, change is something the cops, the government, practically everybody, wants to see least of all.
But I guess nothing lasts forever. Even in the changeless conditions of those big termite hills a man like Becmath was bound to turn up eventually.
The constructional urge in Klittmann is to build up. The magnates and government bosses who build themselves lavish apartments or put city extension schemes into operation always place them on the outer, upper part of the pile. It’s an instinct with them. Sometimes their efforts go too far and the new excrescences collapse and go avalanching down the outer wall, taking hundreds of workmen with them. Efforts at rescue are brief and halfhearted; by reflex the people inside seal off the affected section, embarrassed at their mistake.
In general, though, the work of Klittmann engineers is sound. And as the pile masses itself further up, the buttresses and bastions down below become broader and more solid, to take the strain. Parts of the Basement — the vast sprawling district right down in the guts of the city — are little more than slums huddled beneath massive arches of steel and concrete.
Hidden under the curve of Tenth North Bastion is Mud Street. Its name is because the buildings are jerry-built from a hastily made concrete mix that looks like mud. Mud Street is what passes in Klittmann for an outlying shanty town — in fact it looks a little like some primitive villages I saw on Luna later. It’s dusty, the buildings are thrown together and badly shaped. The only difference is that the bastion, with the whole weight of Klittmann above it, leans over and seems to press down with a crushing presence. The light from the overhead arcs is a sickly yellow.
Just where the bastion comes to an end, and Mud Street opens into a mile-long metal carriageway that’s deserted now, there’s a place known locally as Klamer’s. You enter the door through a curtain and inside there are tables and wall machines for games like Ricochet and Spin-Ball. Sometimes you can get pop there, too, so the place tends to fill up with addicts.
At that time Klamer’s belonged to Darak Klamer, a smalltime operator who more or less controlled Mud Street. When I first met Becmath, which was in the games room on Mud Street, I worked for Klamer. You might say he owned me, too. Bec changed that.
The first I knew of the raid was when I heard shouts and screams mingled with gunfire from the main games room. I was in the back with another of Klamer’s boys when a third looking scared, scuttled in from the main room to join us.
I didn’t stop to ask questions. “Let’s get to the car,” I said. We left through the back door that opened on a side alley, at the end of which our vehicle was parked.
The raiders had already put a man in the alley to nab us if we came out, but I guess he didn’t expect us so soon. As it was I practically came out firing. The bullets from his gun showered powder from the soft stone of the wall near my head, while mine sent him sprawling right up against the back of the alley.
“Let’s push out of here fast,” Hersh said as we jumped in the vehicle. I remember he was a spry little guy who never liked to take chances he couldn’t calculate.
“No,” I said.
As we came out of the alley, I saw that two bigger cars were parked on the other side of Mud Street, looking like humpbacked beetles against the massive rise of the bastion. The cars were occupied; not all the newcomers were inside the gaming rooms.
I swung round and crashed the car into the entrance, blocking it. Then I flung open the nearside door and we piled out, back into the gaming room.
There were four gunmen in there. Apparently they thought they already had the place secure. Our customers — those who were still alive — were streaming out the back way. Good, I thought, now the back way’s blocked too.
I only had a handgun, firing heavy, solid slugs. Hersh had a repeater he’d grabbed just before we left — as a matter of fact it was the only repeater in Klamer’s gang. He sprayed the club with it, shooting down raiders and clients indiscriminately.
The gunplay only lasted seconds, but it made the kind of racket that seems to last an eternity and makes everything confused. Finally I realised the only gun firing was my own. The four outsiders were dead. So was Hersh and the other guy — I forget his name now. The club was empty.
I took a quick look through the front entrance, peering through the car’s windows to the outside. The two strangers were still in position. Our vehicle was jammed solidly in the doorway and I didn’t think they’d move it in a hurry. So I upended a table and took up a position covering the way in from the back.
Just about now it began to occur to me that perhaps after all I hadn’t been so smart. I was cornered and my only hope was that Klamer would turn up with reinforcements, which knowing Klamer I wasn’t too sure of. I wondered who the raiders were. Maybe they had it in for Klamer.
Something moved the curtain at the back of the room. I fired. A body slumped down, bulging the curtain awkwardly.
Silence. A long wait that strained my nerves. I glanced behind me, at the car stuffed through the doorway. But I felt fairly safe from that quarter. I was out of the line of fire from the door and to come through they would have to clamber with difficulty through the car from door to door.
I was wrong. Even while I looked there was a sudden blast and part of the wall caved in.
I just gaped. Dust billowed into the room and obscured everything. When it cleared they were in, pointing their repeaters at me. And I felt pretty foolish.
They looked around, at the bodies on the floor, and clearly weren’t pleased. One of them turned back to me, an expression of sublime unpleasantness on his face.